Un procedimiento de instrucción eficaz para la comunicación y el mantenimiento de peticiones específicas

Results of two studies are presented. The aim of the first study has been the application of an instructional procedure, based on a top down hierarchy of instructional keys, to teach a boy with severe mental retardation to request access to a preferred item by means of a specific requesting and activating a cell of an augmentative and alternative communication device with voice output using a photograph as a symbol. Ecological validity of the intervention was assessed. In a second related study the effect of digitized voice output in the maintenance of requesting for the same boy was assessed. Results for the first study showed that the instructional procedure for the substitution of prelinguistic communicative acts has been an effective one in order to teach the new symbolic communicative behaviour. This symbolic communicative behaviour has been functionally equivalent to the prelinguistics acts the boy used to employ to request favourite items. Generalization of the new learnt communicative behaviour was observed with different communicative partners and in varied settings. In the second study, once the new symbolic communicative behaviour was taught and acquired by the boy, rates of requesting were compared across two conditions, speech output on versus speech output off, that were alternated on a session by session basis, and results showed that the new requesting behaviour was maintained regardless speech output.